MASAHISA FUKASE
Japanese
Masahisa Fukase’s career, which came to an
abrupt halt in 1992 from a fall and subsequent
brain damage, points to his obsessive need to con-
front and seek his changing self. Fukase’s insistence
on photographing his life events and his immediate
surroundings often result in images that provoke
unease, yet they also affirm his existence recipro-
cally. His works hold a unique place in postwar
Japanese photography. In a culture where public
displays of private emotion have often been found
distasteful, Fukase’s work has been provocative,
while the photographer himself has developed a
persona of mystery.
Born in 1934 into a family who owned a photo-
graphic studio in Bifuka-cho, Hokkaido, Fukase
acquired skills of developing film and making prints
as a child, assisting his father. Later in his life,
Fukase commented that his enmity for photogra-
phy probably emerged from the experience during
youth when he washed prints continuously at his
father’s studio despite his wish to go and play with
his friends.
His relationship to photography, based on ‘‘en-
mity’’ grew stronger and more complicated through-
out his career. In a sense, his body of work testifies
not only to his changing self, but also to the chan-
ging nature of his relationship to photography. He
once noted that ‘‘I work and photograph while hop-
ing to stop everything. In that sense, my work may
be some kind of revenge drama about living now.
And this is what I like the most.’’ Photography, in
Fukase’s mind, serves both as the enmity against and
as the necessary means with which to explore and
express himself.
Fukase planned to take over his father’s portrait
studio after his graduation from university with a
bachelor’s degree in photography. However, be-
cause he began living with a woman immediately
after his graduation in 1956, he remained in Tokyo
and took a job as a photographer for an advertise-
ment agency. The miscarriage by this woman in
1961 and her sudden disappearance in 1962 with a
newborn baby left Fukase emotionally distraught.
Although Fukase began photographing in slaugh-
terhouses in 1961 for a series called ‘‘Kill the Pigs!’’
his visit to the slaughterhouse in Shibaura became
almost a ritual after her departure. He took the
earliest train there and photographed all day, every-
day, for a year. He continued to visit the location
after he met Kanibe Yoˆko, his future wife, juxta-
posing the stale and cold conditions of the slaugh-
terhouse with the unmistakable and expressive
human existence of Yoˆko.
His life with Yoˆko played a central and decisive
role in his career from 1963 on. Series such asYoˆko
(published in 1978) andRavens(published in 1986)
attest to their transformative and challenging rela-
tionship through intensely symbolic and emotional
representations. Particularly after their separation
in 1975, Fukase traveled to his hometown in Hok-
kaido more frequently, while photographing ra-
vens in various places out of his train windows.
The images included in the seriesRavensare often
printed with overtly visible grains, and the silvering
eyes of the ravens as well as their shadowy existence
create a weary mood of detachment and darkness.
For Fukase, ravens became an appropriate projec-
tion of his own feelings and living conditions. As he
noted at the third installment of the series, ‘‘I did
not care a bit about ravens. I assumed a defiant
attitude that I myself was a raven.’’ Fukase exhib-
ited the seriesRavensin four installments in gal-
leries, and for the last ‘‘chapter,’’ he revisited the
town housing project where he and Yoˆko spent
their married life. On this occasion he stated, ‘‘I
felt scary, something like a crime offender going
back to the crime scene...The desire to photograph
grew larger and larger, and various images of
tombstones kept spreading in front of me.’’ The
result from the interaction among Fukase’s effort
to reconcile with the unrepeatable past, his com-
pletely changed life after Yoˆko, and his enmity
toward photography construct a powerful personal
journey that sustained Fukase and his relationship
with photography for a decade.
During these trips home, Fukase continued to
work on another series of photographs entitled
Family, using a large-format view camera that his
father used in his portrait studio. For about 20
years, Fukase photographed his family portrait inFUKASE, MASAHISA